
202 4.2 System Processing
The notion of grouping processors and closely interconnecting them
(NUMA) is not new, and in fact, is the basis of high-end multiprocessing
computing, using industry standard processors (e.g., ES7000 from Unisys,
HP’s Integrity and Superdome) or not. The size of each computing “cell”
may vary. In traditional 8-way computing, you have two cells of 4 proces-
sors closely interconnected by a proprietary chipset (e.g., HP’s F8 chipset).
However, true NUMA machines typically enable create cells of a single pro-
cessor or more, and interconnect many of them. They also introduce, from
a processor’s perspective, the notion of local ...